UNITED STATES NEWS

She didn’t see her Black heritage in crossword puzzles. So she started publishing her own

Aug 20, 2024, 9:05 PM

Juliana Pache poses for a photo in Washington Square Park in New York, Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (AP ...

Juliana Pache poses for a photo in Washington Square Park in New York, Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

NEW YORK (AP) — It started a couple of years ago when Juliana Pache was doing a crossword puzzle and got stuck.

She was unfamiliar with the reference that the clue made. It made her think about what a crossword puzzle would look like if the clues and answers included more of some subjects that she WAS familiar with, thanks to her own identity and interests — Black history and Black popular culture.

When she couldn’t find such a thing, Pache decided to do it herself. In January 2023, she created blackcrossword.com, a site that offers a free mini-crossword puzzle every day. And Tuesday marked the release of her first book, “Black Crossword: 100 Mini Puzzles Celebrating the African Diaspora.”

It’s a good moment for it, nearly 111 years after the first crossword appeared in a New York newspaper. Recent years have seen an increasing amount of conversation around representation in crossword puzzles, from who’s constructing them to what words can be used for answers and how the clues are framed. There’s been a push to expand the idea of the kinds of “common knowledge” players would have to fill them out.

“I had never made a crossword puzzle before,” Pache, 32, said with a laugh. “But I was like, I can figure it out.”

And she did.

Made ‘with Black people in mind’

Each puzzle on Pache’s site includes at least a few clues and answers connecting to Black culture. The tagline on the site: “If you know, you know.”

The book is brimming with the kinds of puzzles that she estimates about 2,200 people play daily on her site — squares made up of five lines, each with five spaces. She aims for at least three of the clues to be references to aspects of Black cultures from around the world.

Pache, a native of the New York City borough of Queens with family ties to Cuba and the Dominican Republic, had a couple of goals in mind when she started. Primarily, she wanted to create something that Black people would enjoy.

I’m “making it with Black people in mind,” she said. “And then if anyone else enjoys it, they learn things from it, that’s a bonus but it’s not my focus.”

She’s also trying to show the diversity in Black communities and cultures with the clues and words she uses, and to encourage people from different parts of the African diaspora to learn about each other.

“I also want to make it challenging, not just for people who might be interested in Black culture, but people within Black culture who might be interested in other regions,” she said. “Part of my mission with this is to highlight Black people from all over, Black culture from all over. And I think … that keeps us learning about each other.”

What, really, is ‘general knowlege’?

While on the surface if might just seem like a game, the knowledge base required for crosswords does say something about what kind of knowledge is considered “general” and “universal” and what isn’t, said Michelle Pera-McGhee, a data journalist at The Pudding, a site that focuses on data-driven stories.

In 2020, Pera-McGhee undertook a data project analyzing crossword puzzles through the decades from a handful of the most well-known media outlets. The project assessed clues and answers that used the names of real people to determine a breakdown along gender and race categories.

Unsurprisingly, the data indicated that for the most part, men were disproportionately more likely than women to be featured, as well as white people compared to racial and ethnic minorities.

It’s “interesting because it’s supposed to be easy,” Pera-McGhee said. “You want … ideally to reference things that people, everybody knows about because everyone learns about them in school or whatever. … What are the things that we decide we all should know?”

There are efforts to make crosswords more accessible and representative, including the recently started fellowship for puzzle constructors from underrepresented groups at The New York Times, among the most high-profile crossword puzzles around. Puzzle creators have made puzzles aimed at LGBTQ+ communities, at women, using a wider array of references as Pache is doing.

Bottom line, “it is really cool to see our culture reflected in this medium,” Pache said.

And, Pera-McGhee said, it can be cool to learn new things.

“It’s kind of enriching to have things in the puzzle that you don’t know about,” she said. “It’s not that the experience of not knowing is bad. It’s just that it should maybe be spread out along with the experience of knowing. Both are kind of good in the crossword-solving experience.”

United States News

A Boeing worker wears a mask with a digital "strike" sign as employees picket after union members v...

Associated Press

Boeing factory workers go on strike after rejecting contract offer

SEATTLE (AP) — Aircraft assembly workers walked off the job early Friday at Boeing factories near Seattle after union members voted overwhelmingly to go on strike and reject a tentative contract that would have increased wages by 25% over four years. The strike started at 12:01 a.m. PDT, less than three hours after the local […]

4 hours ago

Associated Press

A scenic California mountain town walloped by a blizzard is now threatened by wildfire

RUNNING SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — In the Southern California mountain town of Running Springs, residents live between two scenic lake resorts — a seemingly serene spot but one also caught between the swings of devastating winter snowstorms and menacing summer wildfires. Niko Rynard is currently evacuated from his home due to the Line Fire, which […]

6 hours ago

Associated Press

1 person shot during scuffle at pro-Israel rally in Boston suburb, authorities say

NEWTON, Mass. (AP) — A pro-Israel rally in a Boston suburb turned violent Thursday evening when a passerby was shot during a scuffle after confronting a group of demonstrators, authorities said. Police were called at 6:40 p.m. to the scene of what they described as a small rally in Newton. Words were exchanged before a […]

6 hours ago

Associated Press

Gulf Coast residents still reeling from Hurricane Ida clean up mess left by Francine

DULAC, La. (AP) — Shortly after Hurricane Francine’s storm surge flooded a cemetery in the Louisiana bayou town of Dulac, Lori-Ann Bergeron arrived Thursday to check on three generations of family graves. Their tombstones were fine, but neighboring caskets had emerged beside broken crosses and soggy flower bouquets. “It’s like this almost every time the […]

7 hours ago

FILE - This undated image provided by the U.S. Department of State shows Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, ...

Associated Press

Longtime Mexican drug cartel leader set to be arraigned in New York

NEW YORK (AP) — Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the powerful longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in New York on a 17-count indictment accusing him of narcotics trafficking and murder. Sought by American law enforcement for more than two decades, Zambada has been in U.S. custody since July […]

7 hours ago

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the...

Associated Press

Trump campaigns in Western states as Harris focuses on critical Pennsylvania

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will campaign Friday in Western states as his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris keeps her focus on one of the biggest battleground prizes in the East, Pennsylvania. Trump is scheduled to hold what’s being billed as a news conference in the morning at his Los Angeles-area golf […]

7 hours ago

Sponsored Articles

...

DAY & NIGHT AIR CONDITIONING, HEATING AND PLUMBING

It wouldn’t hurt to get your AC checked after Arizona’s excruciating heat wave

A well-maintained air conditioning unit is vital to living a comfortable life inside, away from triple-digit heat in Arizona.

...

Day & Night Air Conditioning, Heating and Plumbing

Beat the heat, ensure your AC unit is summer-ready

With temperatures starting to rise across the Valley, now is a great time to be sure your AC unit is ready to withstand the sweltering summer heat.

...

Condor Airlines

Condor Airlines can get you smoothly from Phoenix to Frankfurt on new A330-900neo airplane

Adventure Awaits! And there's no better way to experience the vacation of your dreams than traveling with Condor Airlines.

She didn’t see her Black heritage in crossword puzzles. So she started publishing her own